Today in History:

144 Series I Volume XXVIII-II Serial 47 - Ft. Sumter - Ft. Wagner Part II

Page 144 S. C. AND GA. COASTS, AND IN MID. AND E. FLA. Chapter XL.

ORDNANCE OFFICE, June 25, 1863.

SECRETARY OF WAR:

The Ordnance Bureau can readily furnish the knapsacks, haversacks,and canteens.

The residue of camp and garrison equipage pertains to the Quartermaster's Department.

J. GORGAS.

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE, July 1, 1863.

Respectfully returned to the Secretary of War, with the information that Major Huston Lee, chief quartermaster at Charleston, S. C., has been instructed to supply the necessary camp and garrison equipage.

A. C. MYERS,

Quartermaster-General.

[Inclosures.]

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Columbia, June 16, 1863.

Our vandal foe, unable to cope with the Confederate forces in the open field, have resorted to a mode of warfare which arouses the indignation of every heart capable of a patriotic emotion. Not content with wresting peaceful citizens form their homes and confining them in loathsome dungeons, and with seizing our contended slaves and inhumanly placing them in military organizations, to be shot down in the front of battle, they have inaugurated a system of raids into the interior o the States, stealing negroes, burning cities and farms, destroying live stock and growing crops, and spreading desolation everywhere in their track.

To meet this condition of things, and to render practicable greater concentration of our forces already in the field, and afford adequate internal protection to the States, the President of the confederacy deems it expedient to call for a portion of their reserve force for service within their respective limits. Upon the Governor of South Carolina he calls for 5,000 men, for the period of six months from the 1st day of August next, to be furnished by draft, unless in the intermediate time a volunteers force, organized under the act, herewith published,* to provide for local defense and special service, at least an equal number be mustered and reported to the War Department as subject to the call of the President for service within the State.

These organizations may be voluntary, as will be seen by an examination of the act, and are for special service only within the State, under officers of their own selection, and with the privilege of remaining at home in the pursuit of their ordinary avocations, unless called for a temporary exigency to active duty.

Now, therefore, I, Milledge L. Bonham, governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the State of South Carolina, call upon the people of the State to assemble, on the day fixed in the annexed orders,+ at their respective regimental parade grounds, and to raise and organize the forces called for by the President for the defense of the State.

For two long years your brothers have borne the brunt of this war

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*See "An act to provide," &c., following.

+See General Orders, No. 20, following.

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Page 144 S. C. AND GA. COASTS, AND IN MID. AND E. FLA. Chapter XL.